Major League Soccer Returns To The Sunshine State It is official! Orlando City Soccer Club will be the Major League Soccer’s 21st team. Orlando City will play one more season in the USL PRO and take the field as a MLS club in 2015. Other news coming from MLS commissioner Dan Garber as part of […]
Women’s College Cup Coming To Orlando
Orlando City Stadium has not yet been built, but two major soccer events have already been booked[show_disconnected][show_to accesslevel=’Subscriber’]. The NCAA has awarded the Division I Women’s Soccer College Cup to Orlando for 2016 and 2017. The championships will be co-hosted by the University of Central Florida and the Central Florida Sports Commission, and will be […]
Orange Classic Is Where The Girls Are…….Again – By Ray Alley
One can trace the roots of the Orange Classic International tournament back to 1980. That first Florida girls-only soccer tournament was originally called the Junior Orange Bowl Soccer Tournament. That first year there were only 16 teams in the tournament, but that was a start. The late Don Tufts became the tournament director in 1983 […]
West Florida Argos Runnerup In D-II
Being #2 shouldn’t feel all that bad, unless you’ve been #1 for the past 12 months. The University of West Florida Argonaunts won it all in 2012, and came within one win of doing it again[show_disconnected][show_to accesslevel=’Subscriber’]. Disappointment came in the form of a 2-0 loss to Grand Valley State in the NCAA Division II […]
Cosmos Win NASL Soccer Bowl
Silverbacks Come Up Short In Title Game On balance, by most standards, the 2013 North American Soccer League season was a success for the Atlanta Silverbacks. And a failure. In the new split-season format for the league, the Silverbacks won the spring season and earned the right to host the season-ending Soccer Bowl championship against […]
Josh Wolff Takes New Coaching Step
Josh Wolff began his transition from player to coach with D.C. United. He retired as a professional player in November of 2012. Last year he was a fulltime assistant on Ben Olsen’s staff. It was a difficult year as the team won only three games, the fewest any team has ever won in the history […]
January Coaching Courses In Florida
All USSF National A/B/C coaching license courses. scheduled for Jan. 4-12 in Bradenton FL, are sold out[show_disconnected][show_to accesslevel=’Subscriber’]. The Jan. 20-28 National “A” Renewal is also sold out. Registration is still open for the National Goalkeeper License Course in Bradenton, Feb. 2-9. The next National “A” License Course in Florida will be April 5-13 in […]
The Infamous Other Ref
Ages ago, I was assigned officiate a men’s amateur cup match between two teams who had played one another in a league match the Sunday before. As that league game had just concluded, two players got into a fistfight. They were eventually separated, but the referee did not send off the players for violent conduct. […]
Two Week WNT Camp
U.S. Women’s National Team head coach Tom Sermanni called up 31 players for a December training camp at U.S. Soccer’s National Training Center in Carson, Calif. The two-week camp was the longest training period Sermanni has had with the squad since taking over the team last January[show_disconnected][show_to accesslevel=’Subscriber’]. Aside from a few players still recovering […]
Big Year For U.S. MNT
The U.S. men went 9-2-3 in 2012 under new U.S. Men’s National Team coach Jurgen Klinsmann and then blew up the records in 2013 winning a record 16 times. The team posted a [show_disconnected][show_to accesslevel=’Subscriber’].761 winning percentage which is the best ever winning percentage to date for any year. The U.S finished first in the […]